Securing federal trademark registration is only the beginning of the process of protecting your trademark. Once you’ve registered your mark you must maintain it, and one of the key elements of maintaining your mark is trademark monitoring. This means watching diligently for others making unauthorized use of your mark or attempting to register confusingly similar marks. Here are a few things you should know about trademark monitoring.
Trademark monitoring is crucial to getting brand protection right
Why Is Trademark Monitoring Important?
The USPTO registers trademarks, but it doesn’t monitor or enforce them—that’s up to the trademark owner. In fact, once you’ve acquired trademark rights, you have a duty to maintain your trademark by enforcing those rights. Typically, the earlier you can address a problem use of your mark, the easier things are to solve. The more time and money a potential infringer has invested, the more likely they are to fight back. Trademark monitoring helps you to find and address cases of unauthorized use or infringement earlier rather than later. As an added bonus, the fact that you protect against unauthorized use of your trademark can strengthen your mark in future disputes. In short, good trademark monitoring generally equals earlier, easier resolution of disputes and stronger protection for your trademark.
Trademark monitoring is also important because it alerts you to when you may need to oppose competing trademark registrations. As a trademark owner, you may object to any new trademarks that may harm you. While the USPTO will search its database of registered and pending marks as part of the registration process, they may still approve a mark that you believe is confusingly similar to your own. Therefore, it’s vital that you monitor your trademark so you can stop the registration of similar marks quickly.
What Should Be Monitored and Why?
Trademark monitoring involves keeping tabs on a wide variety of information. Here are a few examples of the kinds of things you should be looking for:
- USPTO trademark applications. It is important to monitor USPTO filings to guard against others attempting to register trademarks that are too similar to yours. If this happens, you may wish to take legal action to stop the registration.
- State trademark and business filings databases. Not all trademark owners seek federal registration. Checking state trademark filings and filings for new business names tells you who wants to use a trademark.
- Search engine results. Despite the many benefits of registration, some individuals or entities go into business without ever filing for any kind of protection. To get the full picture of how trademarks are used, search for your mark on the Internet. Consider setting up Google Alert with your trademark name so you get automatic notifications whenever Google updates its index.
- Usernames on major social media platforms and other websites. One of the most common ways for someone to make unauthorized use of your mark is to “squat” on it on social media.
